The boys from New Jersey

by Robert Rudolph

Of all the extraordinary stories to emerge about the war on organized crime, none is quite so bizarre as the U.S. government's 1988 prosecution of the notorious Lucchese crime family, the mob that claimed to "own" New Jersey. Federal authorities called it the most ambitious legal attack ever mounted against underworld figures--a sixty-five-page indictment capping a ten-year investigation that would take out an entire organization, from godfather to street soldier, in one. Knockout blow. The two-year proceeding became the longest Mafia trial in American history--but it took the jury less than two days to render its verdict: not guilty. On all counts. It was a devastating blow for the government. How did this happen? Robert Rudolph, the only reporter to cover the story from start to finish, answers that question in a book that turns courtroom drama into a rollicking theater of the absurd. At its center are defendants like Jackie "Fat Jack." DiNorscio, the career criminal representing him